


Norns Damned

by ChrisAlWhite



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: All kinds of abuse, Domestic Violence, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Jötunn Loki, Loki Angst, Loki Feels, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M, Manipulation, Mental Breakdown, Mind Games, Mind Rape, Mindfuck, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sorry Not Sorry, Tags Contain Spoilers, This will get dark, hold your babies close, ratings and warnings will go up as the story goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9285542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrisAlWhite/pseuds/ChrisAlWhite
Summary: How did the prideful God of Mischief fall so low as to let himself be a pawn in someone else's game?Loki is not going to have a good time.





	1. Chapter 1

It stuck itself into the engineer's mind and refused to leave. It more or less fused with the nightmares and fall out/rebuild of, basically the entire damn city. The billionaire took to re-watching as much of the footage as he could. Intentionally putting himself into the moment. Perhaps for immersion self-therapy? God knew he needed actual therapy, but there was no way in Hell he'd actually go if he had an appointment. He watched the battle over and over, trying to come to terms with what happened. To make sure it wasn't all a dream of hallucination. It kept him up at night.

 

Pepper caught him watching the footage and frequently told him to come back to bed. He said he would, but rarely did. More times than not, she'd go back to bed without him, but on rare occasions, she'd watch the film with him. Even then, she was more interested in his expressions that what was being shown on the screen. She didn't want to getting more wrapped up in it than he already was. The obsession worried her. On one of those midnight footage showings, she was sitting next to him on the couch, curled up into his side.

 

"Why don't you ever watch the ending?"

 

"There's nothing to watch. I know what happened."

 

"Not even to remind yourself that Loki was caught? The danger is gone and behind bars on a different world. You might as well reassure yourself of that."

 

"If he wasn't locked away, SHIELD would know, and as an extension, I would know. There is nothing that SHIELD has that I haven't read."

 

"Fine, but just once? For me?"

 

The genius sighed in exasperation and gave her a look, but would do it anyway. "You heard the lady Jay, pull up the footage of capturing Reindeer Games."

 

"Of course, sir."

 

The AI did as instructed and brought the clip out of the back of the file and brought it up to the forefront. It played right away as the couple settled in to watch it. Tony wrapped his arm around Pepper and fixed his eyes on the screen.

 

"You never told me he had green eyes." The CEO muttered casually.

 

"What are you talking about? His eyes are blue."

"Really? They're green, right there." She reached her hand up to the screen. The clip paused and zoomed in as Pepper wanted. As she said, his eyes were a deep emerald green and the god looked like he was about to cry. None of that fit. Loki was a cocky bastard with blue eyes that didn't hesitate to throw someone out of a window with a smile on his face. Why would he cry? He never came across as a baby or a sore loser.

 

"Jarvis, when did Loki's eyes change color?"

 

"It appears, from the footage, that his eyes changed from blue to green after Dr. Banner, i.e. the Hulk, cracked his head into concrete repetitively. Perhaps it was a result of his head knitting itself back together after being smashed against the floor, Sir?"

 

Tony was fascinated. He watched the scene over again. The god seemed to be in immense pain, just sitting there until the Avengers made their presence known. It wasn't like they all got there at the exact same time and just stood there quietly. They had gotten there and waited for the rest of the team to get there before confronting him. The first there, was the Hulk and he made sure the trickster didn't try to get away. From the video, it seemed as though he was spaced out and in pain. He was healed, why would he have been in pain? Why didn't he try to escape?

 

"Tony?"

 

"Pepper, you may have just turned this entire fiasco on its head."

 

She sat up and turned to look at him. "What are you talking about?"

 

"Inconsistencies that don't add up." He sounded as though he was already starting to drift off into his mind that ran too fast for most to keep up  
with. He wasn't going to sleep tonight. If she knew him, he was going to do everything in his power to solve every mystery and she had just supplied him with several.

 

She sighed in resignation and got up. "I'm going to bed. At least try to get some sleep tonight. You have a meeting over lunch tomorrow. You can't be falling asleep at the table, no matter how much you may want to."

 

"I won't," he answered without much thought. He probably wouldn't sleep. She'd be lucky if he got himself out of his rabbit hole long enough to actually go to the meeting.

 

She left him like that for the night and fell asleep in the too large bed by herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can ship just about anyone with anyone else. Send me a request and I'll add it in. First come first served.
> 
> Pepper/Tony is designed to be temporary


	2. Chapter 2

After watching the footage, frame by frame, Tony learned several things while paying attention to Loki's eyes. Throughout the entire battle, his eyes changed shades of blue. At times, they were the same shade of blue as the scepter, other times, they had a greenish heuh. That inspired the genius to look at clips of other people that were under the influence of the spear. Of the fragments of footage that he could salvage from the SHIELD lab, he found that Dr. Banner's eyes flashed momentarily blue, instead of Hulk's green or his natural brown. He also found from Dr. Erik Selvig's eyes seemed to change shades of blue. While there wasn't much footage of Barton, what clips he could find, his eyes had also changed.

The genius glanced at the paused screen that showed the, almost pathetic, green eyes that was almost brimmed over with emotion. That image had become his motivation to solving this puzzle that had one too many edge pieces missing. A couple of the corner pieces were probably gone as well, for all he knew, goddammit.

As predicted, he completely forgot about that lunch meeting and showed up late. It wasn't alone on that growing list of things sacrificed for this session of tunnel vision. He even started putting a hold on his Mach designs to work on this, and that's saying something all of its own.

"Tony, this has to stop. You've had your time to work on it, and you haven't got anything to show for it. Sure, you put a few stretched points together, but you have nothing else to show for it. At least with the Iron Man Suits you have something to show for your work at the end of the day. You have other, more important, things to be working on. You've done all you can. Let it go."

"Pepper, in the years that you've known me, have I ever let anything go that caught my attention for more than... three hours? It’s either this, or drinking myself into a stupor, and I'm tired of going to rehab. No thanks."

"It's a shame there isn't a rehab for workaholics. They'd make a fortune off of you." she muttered into her drink.

"I heard that."

"It's true and I wasn't trying to hide it. You know that. Look, Tony, even if you did make some big revelation, what good is it for? He's locked away, god knows where, paying the price for all the damage and lives he took. Mind controlled or not, he still did all those terrible things."

"So, Dr. Selvig should get the same treatment? And Barton? Hawkeye technically killed more people than Loki did."

"That isn't what I meant."

"Then what did you mean? It's alright for our guys to cry 'brainwashing' and get away with it because they are 'good guys', but it isn't for Loki? Is it because he's an alien? Because Thor said he was a bad kid growing up?"

"Tony." she said with as much exasperation as you'd expect when it was obvious that the billionaire was about to go on a rant. She just wanted to eat their dinner and enjoy their 'date' in piece.

"Don't you 'Tony' me. Why is it alright for our guys, but not for him?"

"Why do you care?" she snipped right back. "You never liked him and he threw you out of your own window! You offered him a drink and he tried to turn you against your friends. And don't even get me started on the people he's killed."

"Because Loki is smarter than to lose. He was raised on Asgard, a world that is always at war. He should be a strategic genius in his own right, but he had the alien monsters come though one at a time. He let himself get caught even though he probably knew it meant imprisonment. He didn't come after any of us with his all. He was distracted. I want to know what he was thinking. I want to know why he stretched his warriors so thin instead of bombarding everything at once. I want to know why he didn't personally kill anyone."

"And all of this is so important to you that it's worth consuming everything else in your life." She accused and Tony didn't even look ashamed. That's probably what bothered her most. "Unless you can do something useful with all of this intel, speculation, whatever, I suggest that you focus on something that will yield physical results. I can't keep the board off of your ass forever." Pepper snipped, ending the conversation.

She threw her dining napkin on the table and got up. "Excuse me." she grumbled and walked away, leaving her salad half finished.

Tony was left there on his own weighing what she said. He decided that he'd discuss it with Barton the next time he saw him and make his decision then as to whether to continue down this path or listen to his girlfriend. He should listen to her, but he just couldn't let this go. It felt like abandoning someone that needed him. It didn't sit well with him at all. If anyone could help the God, it was him. But then again, Pepper was usually right. She wasn’t his girlfriend and CEO for nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We slowly get the stone rolling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to anon frend for being the first to request a ship to be featured. It is slowly in the works, but the ship will sail at some point.

After that dinner with Pepper, the two of them has a falling out of sorts. They still cared for one another, that was never in question, but the  CEO was really worried about her friend. Despite caring for him, she refused to let herself get pulled down that trail with him. She believed that he was on a one way trip to some place dark. She could not be in that dark place with him, she had to be his light to lead him back out. It hurt her, but she couldn't follow him.

 

Tony, despite being a certified genius, couldn't understand why she couldn't understand what he was trying to do? He was trying to do the right thing as she was scolding him for it. Isn't that the exact opposite of what she's been telling him to do? 

 

To be fair, he never focused on that for too long. As, you could probably expect, he had tunnel vision for his new project. He analyzed all that he could with the pieces that he had, but their still _so many missing_. After his resources were exhausted, he contemplated who he could reach out

to for assistance that wouldn't immediately fly off the handle. His team was so stretched out at that moment that he had to reach them by phone. Several of which would, probably, hang up on him at even mentioning the God of Mischief. Clint was probably one of them. Maybe Banner as well. The

good doctor doesn't trust anything that had to do with the lithe Asgardian and didn't trust him as far as the Hulk could throw him. Yeah, Banner wasn't an option. Steve and Natasha may be options, but Romanov was probably with Clint, so she was probably out as well, which left Cap.

 

Would good ol' Captain America be willing to help him prove Loki's innocents?

 

What the hell, why not? It was worth a shot. The worst thing Rogers could do was tell him no, then turn around and tell SHIELD what he had his

nose in. Theoretically,  _ someone _  at SHIELD knew what he was doing. They somehow seemed to know everything, it wouldn't surprise him if they knew. Yeah, he'd be pissed, but he wouldn't be surprised. So, it was settled. He'd call Cap and see if he could swing by and see if he had any good useful ideas about anything.

 

"Hey Jay? Get Cap on the line, I got a question for him."

 

"Of course, Sir."

 

The AI did as told and Tony waited to see if the soldier would pick up. A few moments later, Jarvis came back with a hint of amusement in his tone. Did he teach his baby to do that? "It appears as though Captain Rogers will call us back. He is on his motorcycle and wishes to pull over and spend time on the phone. He should be on the line momentarily."

 

"God bless Steve Rogers," Tony laughed. That soldier was probably the only person in the modern world to pull over to the side of the road to take a call. He took modern 'safety and regulations' to heart.

 

_**< Be safe out there on bikes!> ** _

 

As predicted, a few moments later, Captain America was on the line and Tony was reigning in his laughter. "You do know, you won't get hurt if you crashed, right? And I could easily replace the bike if you totaled it?"

 

"Yeah, but what if I crashed into someone else?" the blond chided. He was far from amused. "Is there a reason you called me, Stark?"

 

"Actually, yes, their is. It's about Loki."

 

"What about him?"

 

"Oh, good, you haven't hung up on me yet. That's good. It's been brought to my attention that he was just a puppet in someone else's game."

 

"Tony, if this is some kind of joke I will-"

 

"But it isn't! I swear, Stars and Stripes, I have reason to believe that he was under mind control, just like Barton was. I figured you'd like to help me figure out the whole story and help out someone that was wrongly accused and imprisoned without trial. You know, American righteousness and freedom and all."

 

Steve went quiet for a while, as though contemplating his options. "Alright, I'll hear you out, but that doesn't mean I'm going to mindlessly agree with you. He still killed a lot of people."

 

"Yeah, yeah, sure. I get that. I knew you'd agree to give it a look. See you soon Captain Planet."

 

Just as the blond was about to question the reference, Tony had Jarvis cut off the call. "Get everything ready, Honey, we'll be having a guest," the brunette teased.

 

"Should I order some extra lubricant to be placed in your bedside table?" The AI sassed.

  
"Wait, what? No! Where did you even- No! Jay! That's just wrong!" The billionaire went on and on about how his baby was getting a dirty mind and he had no idea where that came from. If the program had a physical form, he'd be smiling in amusement.

**Author's Note:**

> I can ship basically anyone with anyone else. If you want to see your ship in this angst fest, let me know and I'll put it in. First come first serve.
> 
> The Pepper/Tony is designed to be temporary.


End file.
